Mourning
by Vasiliki
Summary: Hiko/Saitou -or Saitoh. Please mind the WARNINGS: violence, issues, yaoi of the PWP variety, i.e. graphic male/male sex. "In the 11th Year of the Meiji Era, Hiko is thinking about the past, when he gets an unexpected visitor."
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Mourning**

Author: Vasiliki, 3-6 May 2003.

Beta-reader: Whizzy, May 2010.

Warnings: Violence. Graphic yaoi sex (male/male sex of the PWP variety). Issues.

If there was something you liked in the fic, please review!

.-.-.-

_Near Kyoto. 11th__ Year of the Meiji era._

The pottery mugs were baking well, Seijuuro Hiko the 13th Master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu affirmed. Satisfied, he took his usual place in the middle of his mountain cottage, facing the door. He poured a cup of warm sake to himself and took a sip. Relishing the taste, he let his thoughts drift.

Shishio Makoto was dead. His idiot pupil had saved the government and the country. Not alone, of course, but with help from his friends (the rooster-head young man, and the bunch of people Hiko had saved in the Aoiya) and allies (the former Oniwa-banshu leader… a worthy opponent). With help even from his enemies. Hiko narrowed his eyes at the thought of the former captain of the 3rd division of the Shinsengumi, Saitou Hajime. How strange, the reality of former Battousai and Mibu's Wolf fighting on the same side. More than ten years ago, they had been out for each other's blood, and at the time that had seemed something that could never change. How ironic for Hiko, to see now both the man that his pupil had become (Himura Kenshin, the rurouni) and the man that Saitou had become (Fujita Goro, the policeman), when he had seen neither in so many years. It brought back memories.

The end of Edo era. The bloodshed of Bakumatsu. The violence. The incessant killing.

His trysts with Saitou, if he could call them that, had taken place in that other era, and although passionate, had not lasted long. The other man had been the one who disappeared all of a sudden. A sting to Hiko's conceited self, until he learned one day that Saitou had gotten married. Knowing well of arranged marriages and satisfied that it had not been another swordsman, after all, who had won the Wolf's attention, he had nevertheless felt angry with the man for not letting him know. But he had realized almost immediately that given their nonexistent relationship status that would have been out of the question, so then dismissed the issue altogether.

Hiko raised his head sharply, letting his sake cup down. The following moment, the unlocked door opened, as if by a gust of wind. Like summoned, a figure dressed in the dark blue color of the police appeared at the door, cigarette dangling from thin lips. Saitou Hajime!

For a while, the two men seized each other with leveled gazes, in silence. Then, Saitou discarded his cigarette and entered the cottage, letting the door close behind him. His Nihon-katana was nowhere in sight.

'You still wear that ridiculous cloak,' was his greeting.

'Not everyone turned sides and changed style in Meiji.'

Hiko recalled Shinsengumi's sky blue attire, which had made Saitou look so much younger. But then again, he **had been** younger back then. Both of them. And they were much older now.

'I always follow my code. A Wolf never changes what he is, even if his skin may change.'

'Aku. Soku. Zan.'

'Precisely.'

Hiko remained silent.

'You don't seem surprised to see me,' Saitou remarked.

'Should I be?'

'Your former student believes that I'm dead. I thought that he might have informed you.'

Hiko snorted. 'Don't underestimate him. He knows that you're not that easy to kill.'

Saitou made a noncommittal sound. His long lean face was impassive. He looked around the room. 'This place hasn't changed at all in 12 years.'

'Have you been counting them?' Hiko had not meant to sound sarcastic, but genuinely curious. He was intrigued.

The standing man turned his smoldering golden gaze to him, while snatching a cigarette and matches from his breast pocket. He put the cigarette between his lips and was ready to light a match when Hiko's voice stopped him:

'Not here. If you want to smoke, go out.'

Saitou looked at the sitting man, and very slowly, very deliberately, lighted the match and then touched it to the end of his cigarette. He took a couple of drags to start it burning, and then he inhaled deeply, keeping the smoke inside his lungs for a while, before he blew it out. His gaze never leaving the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu Master, he threw the match to the floor, where it extinguished itself rapidly.

The taller man's face had darkened. He stood up, towering in the confined space. 'What will you gain by provoking me?' he asked.

Saitou blew more smoke out, before he answered. 'Perhaps you'll be infuriated enough to take up again what was interrupted so abruptly 12 years ago.'

Hiko smirked arrogantly. 'You'll have to beg for **that**. You know well that I'm not interested in men. Especially married men.'

Eyelids descended so low above cold, cold eyes that only two thin slices of golden irises were visible. 'Your student should do his best to stay away from Kyoto, because the next time I meet him, I'll kill him. Truce is over.'

Hiko made an annoyed movement with his arm, and his cape waved. 'He's not my student anymore. He stopped being my responsibility when he left the mountain to become a pawn in the hands of men smarter than him. Men who didn't care for anything other than his ability to kill blindly.'

Saitou drew another breath from his cigarette. 'While you truly cared for him. In other ways, deeper.'

Hiko's eyes flashed dangerously, warningly. 'Leave my mountain, while you still have the time.'

'Or what?' Saitou gave him a sardonic smirk. 'Did his cries bounce off the walls of this room with the same rhythm you pounded his virgin ass into the floor? Did you rip him open, making him bleed, his childish member soft in your hand? Did he join the revolution, when he was old enough, because anything was better than what he had to take from you?'

Although Saitou knew it was coming, he barely had time to register, much less to block, the attack that landed on him with the famous god-speed. Hiko slammed him to the wall, next to the door, his arm pressing against Saitou's neck horizontally. The Wolf of Mibu counter-attacked with his left fist aiming at Hiko's stomach, but he was turned aside easily.

'You psycho!' Hiko grounded through his teeth, and tried to use one of his hands to open the door and haul Saitou through it. This gave his opponent an opening, and Saitou didn't waste a moment in using his right fist and forcing his knee towards Hiko's groin at the same time. Hiko's quick contortion of body made the low blow land between his groin and hipbone, but he didn't escape the punch that caught him across the face. With a wrathful shout, he used his entire weight to bring Saitou down and slam him face first on the rough floor. He twisted Saitou's right arm so high behind his back that the man's fingers almost touched the nape of his neck, eliciting a groan of pain.

'If you want it so much, then you can have it!' he growled.

His fingers tore the blue trousers down long strong legs, exposing fleshy buttocks. Saitou twisted his lean body underneath him, his left elbow slamming upwards, full force at Hiko's breast. Hiko's breath stumbled, but he caught the arm and held it behind Saitou's back at an even more acute angle than the other. Bones grated. The Wolf snarled to stifle his moan. The swordmaster lowered his heavy body over Saitou's, his hot breath straight in Saitou's right ear.

'What? Have you changed your mind?' He dripped sarcasm, but there was a tint of doubt in his voice.

Saitou's answer was to press his bare ass tightly against Hiko's heat.

'Just do it!' he panted, cheek against the floor.

'Start begging!'

Saitou's body became taut as a bowstring. The corner of Hiko's mouth turned upwards into his patented arrogant smile, just as another part of himself came forcefully to life. He gripped the right wrist of the man underneath him with his left hand, keeping Saitou's arm twisted securely, and propped his weight on his left elbow. Saitou having an arm free would not be of any help to him, not with Hiko's mass pinning him down. He had forgotten how savage their lovemaking could be, the struggle of two young swordsmen for power, Saitou's need to fight him in real, most often with swords drawn, before he gave in – Shinsengumi's Gatotsu against Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, the Wolf's fangs attacking the Dragon, and being chipped in the endeavor. Hiko still remembered the time he had been too intoxicated on sake and the smell of arousal, too indulgent towards Saitou, to care to come out the victor. He had wondered afterward if what kept Saitou coming back wasn't the wish for a repeat of that night. But now the victor he certainly was, and the memories brought with them a surge of desire.

'How many times did I take you like this? Defeated, face down…'

His right fingers groped and dug in the firm white buttocks and his palm kneaded the flesh, before he gave it a loud slap.

'On your knees!' he commanded sharply, and when Saitou did not comply, he sneaked his hand underneath the sinewy body and tugged it upwards, round ass in the air. He took out himself quickly, darkened wide girth bouncing against Saitou's skin. Big fingers drove in the cleft, and thumb and knuckles spread the firm buttocks apart. He poised himself, dripping already, against the clenched entrance. And then raised his head and hesitated, swift eyes checking the room for the oil-lamp.

'You don't need that!' hissed Saitou, breath coming fast at the feeling of the impossibly large organ throbbing hot between his ass-cheeks.

'It's been too long. You're too tensed,' Hiko dismissed him.

'Move, you asshole!' Saitou growled and started struggling in earnest.

Hiko was annoyed. Fine, then. A bit of blood wouldn't kill anyone. It never had in the past. Not even when there were swords involved, which meant a lot of blood. He released Saitou entirely, grabbing his hips instead, feeling the freed buttocks clamping firmly around the end of his hard length in an instant. And then, he **pushed**. He thrust his engorged muscle forcefully inside Saitou's bowels to the root, bending all resistance in the wake of its relentless movement. The heavy testicles slapped against the flushed skin that stretched to its limits, straining to accommodate the organ. The Wolf of Mibu screamed.

'NNGH!' Hiko's thunderous moan was still reverberating off the walls of the cottage, when Saitou's howl was interrupted abruptly by sharp teeth drawing blood from too thin lips.

Hiko's eyes were shut, his head thrown back, his breast heaving deeply with pleasure. Even the best of his memories were but a shadow compared with the reality of Saitou's hot flesh squeezing him. Everything was throbbing inside Saitou's body, his gut boiling around Hiko's length, making Hiko's head float. For some time, he was too awash in the sensations to move. Then, he drew himself out slowly, sloowwwly, savoring each and every spasm of burning muscles and steaming skin, and slammed back in, eliciting another choked yowl from the man whose ass he was fucking. It had been too long since he had felt anything remotely close to these kinds of sensations, since he had plunged in such devouring softness. His delight made him feel a hint of gratitude, and he waited a few moments for Saitou's trembling body to get used to him. He started pounding in earnest then, in and out, in and out, jolting the body under him with every powerful stab. Rougher, and harder, and deeper than he had rammed into anyone in years; rougher, and harder, and deeper than he had ever screwed Saitou before.

He was building ferociously his inexorable rhythm towards the unavoidable point. Very fast he ascended towards it, Saitou's ropy muscles squeezing the breath out of him. He started spiraling out of control, ever upwards, struggling against the vertigo that almost got hold of him. When he was high enough that his head felt too light from the lack of oxygen and his prismatic world needed but a few more thrusts to shatter, he extended his arm around Saitou's waist, snaking his fingers around his length. Which was only half-erect and didn't show any signs of reacting to Hiko's ministrations.

Hiko was surprised enough to stop moving. He forced himself to open his eyes, panting heavily and irregularly. Saitou's body was rather slack underneath him, and the realization dawned on him that the other man had hardly met any of his thrusts. He grabbed his shoulder and turned him, to see his face. The slit eyes were scrunched shut, the skin between his brows furrowed. His teeth were clenched and blood was dripping from his bitten lips.

'You don't want this,' Hiko realized.

No movement. No answer.

He felt himself dropping, like a stone towards water, senses clearing very fast. Bitterness and bile arose in his throat. With less difficulty than what he would have thought possible, given his euphoria just two moments ago, he pulled himself out abruptly. The slurping sound was joined by a few droplets of blood and Saitou's jolt and wince. The silence was heavy between them. Hiko took several deep breaths to keep his self-restraint, inhuman and legendary at that moment, the blood leaving his softening organ to gather and beat too loudly in his ears.

'What happened?'

'I buried Tokio.'

The shock cleared Hiko's head completely. 'When?'

Saitou's voice was hollow. 'Three days ago.'

'Why did you come?'

'To mourn.'

'To mourn her or our past, that you killed more surely than with a Gatotsu strike through a man's heart?' Hiko roared.

Saitou moved for the first time, sitting upright stiffly, his back to the other man. After a while, apathetic, he reached in his pocket for his cigarettes and matches. 'I need a smoke,' he said.

'Get out! And close the door behind you.'

Saitou got up, strangely dignified. He set his clothes in order quickly, but efficiently, and if his fingers trembled imperceptibly, Hiko didn't notice in his rage. He hesitated before the door, making to turn his head, when Hiko's blunt words stopped him.

'Do not set foot to my mountain ever again. Or I won't spare you.'

He was perfectly, deadly serious. Saitou's hand formed a fist, but he exited the cottage.

The sake lost its taste for Hiko that day, and his art suffered. He was in anger, both with the former Shinsengumi and himself. Bringing all the memories back, so suddenly and unexpectedly, had unsettled his mind and his life. The knowledge that Saitou's visit was not because of desire for him, but in order to serve a twisted sense for self-punishment, was bitter. He attributed his pained feelings to a superficial suffering of his ego, yet he wondered why his heart itself felt hollow.

The setting of the sun found him sitting on the trunk in front of his doorstep, looking at the horizon as always, yet this time, he thought that the twilight came faster and the darkness was thicker. When he looked at the weakly stars, he found them dim. He got up and went inside, closing the door behind him, sealing the room against the outside darkness. A futile move, for he carried the night inside with him.

.

to be continued


	2. Chapter 2

The same night, when Kyoto and the surrounding areas were deeply asleep, a lonely figure walked to the mountain cottage near the waterfall. It entered Seijuuro Hiko's humble house, the moonlight shining on a drawn Nihon-katana. The man sleeping on the floor was easily discernible to the trained eyes of Mibu's Wolf.

Saitou Hajime reached soundlessly the mattress were the 13th Master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu was sleeping, and looked down at the big form. Hiko was covered in a thin blanket, never wearing a shirt. The powerful muscles of as much of his upper body was visible gleamed. The handsome features of his chiseled face were calm, his long black hair untied, lying around him on the pillow. Saitou drank in the sight for a second and moved the tip of the sword to the sleeping man's throat. The following moment, he found himself on his back, his feet having been swept under him, a hand gripping the wrist of his sword hand.

'I warned you!' Hiko's voice was deadly.

'I was never good at obeying threats. I prefer being the one delivering them.' The Wolf of Mibu's golden eyes were equally lethal.

'Why did you return?' Hiko growled.

Saitou brought his crotch up sharply, the cloth of his uniform in rough friction with Hiko's naked body, producing a light gasp from him. 'To finish what we started.'

A shadow of the arrogant smirk played itself on Hiko's lips, but it vanished immediately, leaving in its place an angry mouth. 'Do you think you can use me again?'

'You want this as much as I do.'

'Shut up!' Hiko boomed, his chest rising and falling with suppressed wrath. 'Go to a whore in the town, if you're in such a need! Go to a male whore, for all I care, if you want to be taken!'

Saitou's eyes widened slightly. With a yell, he threw Hiko from above him and sat up. For a few moments, the only sound heard in the room was their breathing. Then, Saitou grabbed the hilt of his katana and ordered coldly:

'Go find your sword.'

The Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu Master had had enough. 'If you don't get lost right now, I'll break both your arms before I throw you out.'

'A bit of pain never killed anyone,' Saitou echoed Hiko's thoughts of the previous morning.

'You have always been a psycho.'

'It never stopped you from fighting me for it.'

'Idiot! It was you who wanted to fight every time! I was not always in the mood for your power games!'

'I always wondered why you indulged me that time,' Saitou said slowly.

Hiko hmph'ed. Saitou was silent for a while, before he said, barely audible through his clenched teeth:

'People change.'

Hiko raised an eyebrow. 'I thought a Wolf never changes.'

'But even the Wolf learns.'

Hiko was startled. 'Why did you come this morning? The truth.'

'For oblivion.'

'The truth!'

Saitou's laugh was hoarse. 'It'll make you an even more conceited bastard than you already are.'

Hiko's eyes became two thin dangerous slits.

Saitou raised his head. 'But if I don't have to put up with you after this meeting, I could live with that.'

He made a move with his left hand, as if to fetch something from his breast pocket, but he stopped in midair and brought it down to rest on his knee instead. His gaze swept the wall of the cabin.

'Often, the death of a loved person will make one examine not only their life together, but his own life as well,' he said finally. 'I owed it to Tokio's family to look after their daughter, therefore I married her. She was a good wife. More than I deserved.'

Hiko waited.

'It is strange', Saitou continued and his voice sounded hollow, 'to find yourself without anyone to look after, to find yourself without any direct obligations anymore.'

He fell silent for a long time. The other man wasn't sure if the former Shinsengumi was really looking at the decorative ceramic mugs hung on the wall, or if he was not reliving bloody scenes of sword-fighting and savage death. His golden eyes were half-closed, the lean face empty, slightly tipped back; and an aura of wistfulness radiated from his body.

'Do you ever think about the time of the Bakumatsu?' he asked at the end.

'Saitou, your morning visit wasn't that of a man who looked for someone to listen to his reminiscing.' Hiko had started despairing. 'You're not telling me anything new. And you're not answering my question.' Hiko's annoyance remained, although his anger was evaporating rapidly.

He had never before encountered Saitou in such a mood. He had not thought it **possible** that Saitou could enter such a mood. Perhaps the fact that now he was all alone in life, with no family to return to and no other ties to his past (even his sworn enemy Himura Battousai was dead for good inside the rurouni Himura Kenshin), had shaken his perspective after all. Perhaps he was not only mourning the death of his wife and family life, but the death of an era.

Except… Hiko was the last tie of Saitou with the past. 'The times have changed and we live in a new era,' Hiko said. 'You cannot revive your old life through me. I'm a mere potter now.'

'The Hiko Seijuuro I know is no mere potter.'

Kenshin's master recalled his former pupil saying the same words to him, over a month ago.

Saitou turned and looked him straight in the eye. 'I won't beg,' he said.

Hiko's eyes widened.

'The reason I gave you this morning was the truth,' Saitou continued. 'Take it or leave it.'

The anger that had subsided returned full force. 'You think I'll fall for your tricks twice?' the big man shouted. 'This morning, your body cried better than any words that it didn't want what was happening. Your mouth didn't deny it either.'

It was Saitou's turn to lose his patience. 'I didn't come here with the intention for it to happen like it did!' he snarled. 'That's why I came unarmed. It's been too long since I've been near you, the memories got me off balance. Your attitude didn't help either!'

'You could never admit to yourself what the true reason was you kept coming back,' Hiko muttered.

'A man has to preserve his reputation!'

'A man's reputation is public. It doesn't interfere with your admissions to yourself,' Hiko refuted.

Saitou strained to give up his building anger. 'Fine. Yet, I'm here now.'

'Because…?'

'Asshole!' Saitou yelled, and snapped. He pounced on the other man, golden eyes crazy, scabbard heading straight for the neck. Hiko warded off the strike, but he was thrown on the mattress, a frenzied Wolf of Mibu above him raining down blows. Hiko staved off most of them, but received one on his left cheekbone, the same place where Saitou had hit him the previous morning. He winced and swore before he managed to throw Saitou off him and reverse their positions.

They were both panting, forming pale white clouds in the cool air between them, mouths half open. The long tongue of Mibu's Wolf licked his thin lips, the wounds from the previous morning re-opened, and Hiko saw his eyes clearing slowly, the thirst for blood replaced by another kind of thirst. By some unknown force, they gravitated to each other, extended strong tongues meeting violently in mid-air, sparring, twisting, dancing. When they broke the tongue kiss, thick saliva threads kept them connected for a few moments longer, before the streaks landed on Saitou's jacket.

Hiko's abysmal eyes locked with Saitou's, and after a few moments of gazing at each other, Saitou reached up and drove his fingers in the long black hair, his body following the movement, hungry mouth open. Hiko fell on him like a dragon descending from heaven, a Ryuu Tsui Sen ending with the fleshy muscle of his tongue plunging into Saitou's mouth, eating at him, devouring his lips and gums and palate, swallowing as much of his saliva and the blood from his broken lip as he could, sucking and biting his fighting tongue.

They kissed for a long time. At the beginning, Hiko was unrelenting, wanting to hurt Saitou, to let him know his place, but then the sweetness of that bitter-from-cigarettes mouth softened him, and he stopped punishing, satisfied with only attacking and defending. After more battling, the kiss changed again, and became slower, more indulgent, their tongues stroking each other lavishly and tasting Saitou's coppery blood, their lips meeting and nibbling and suckling, and wandering to the skin around their mouths.

They broke the kiss, when Saitou brought his drifting lips at Hiko's neck, kissed and licked its entire length downwards, grazing with his teeth, insisting on his Adam's apple, and then started sucking at its base. The taller man's head was thrown back, exposing as much of his neck as he could to Saitou's ravishing mouth.

'I told you…ahh…that if you set foot to my mountain again…ngghh…I won't spare you.'

'I was counting on you being a man of his word,' Saitou smirked evilly.

'Clothes, off! Now!' Hiko tore the blue jacket open, causing buttons to fly left and right, and then off Saitou's shoulders, while Saitou was discarding his trousers.

'Careful!' Saitou snarled. 'I have to wear this uniform at the police station in the morning!'

'You won't be able to walk to get down the mountain in the morning!' Hiko let out a throaty laugh.

Saitou's eyes flashed dangerously. 'As I walked after your act yesterday, the morning won't be a problem.'

Hiko stopped momentarily. 'You have had worse in the past.'

'It was my first time after 12 years, you arrogant, conceited idiot!'

'You asked for it that way!' Hiko started feeling slightly guilty, berating himself for not having fetched the oil.

'Just get on with it!' Saitou growled and pushed his pelvis upwards. Their burning manhoods touched, sending blue electric bolts through their nerves, straight to their brains. They gasped and started rubbing against each other, the friction from their dry humping setting off white sparks behind their eyes. Saitou grabbed the bigger man's muscled torso and toppled them on their sides, himself slightly over Hiko, his right leg bent at the knee, his strong hand gripping Hiko's left buttock. Hiko grabbed and worked Saitou's malleable ass-cheeks with both hands. They moved, and sweated, and ground their teeth. They moaned and panted, their fire building hotter and brighter, their skin being traversed by electric current with every touch.

'If we keep this up…' Saitou warned through clenched teeth, sweat dripping from his brow, his few long strands of hair moistened.

'It's fine,' Hiko reassured, gasping.

Saitou's thin eyebrow rose. 'Don't you want…?' he panted.

Hiko presented his left middle and index fingers to Saitou, who sneered before he took them in his mouth, covering them with his bloody saliva and biting them lightly as they withdrew. Always grinding against each other, pre-come leaking copiously between them, Hiko stretched his arm behind the other man, forced the firm ass-cheeks apart with his right hand and drove his thick fingers in. Saitou's eyes flew open and he bit his already bleeding bottom lip to strangle his cry.

'I don't think so,' Hiko answered calmly, his breath quick. Yet, as he made to pull out, Saitou grabbed his wrist. It was Hiko's turn to raise his eyebrow. Mibu's Wolf met his eyes, shaking his head warningly, and Hiko's fingers remained inside Saitou's ass, flexing and moving circularly.

Saitou sneaked his hands between their moving bodies. He took them both in one rough palm and started pumping forcefully, while his other hand stroke and squeezed Hiko's heavy testicles, his middle finger pushing the area right behind the sack. Their muscles were steaming, tighter than bowstrings, loud moans leaving their half-opened mouths. Hiko worked his fingers as a hot piston, in and out of Saitou, in an imitation of his pounding him with his meaty length during their last encounter. Their heavy breathing became very fast, and their deep moans louder, their rhythm speeding with every second.

Then, Saitou bit Hiko's neck, who jolted against him, and thrust a third finger into him, all three moving together in a screwing motion, deeper than what he could have thought possible, sparking off the final flame. The stimulation was too much to withstand and it threw them off the precipice of ecstasy. They groaned, their bodies jerking forward, their muscles giving in to the spasmodic reaction of orgasm. Thick milky seed gushed forth in great lengthy spurts and splashed all over their firm bellies, flowing down on pubic hair, stray drops landing on trembling arms and heaving chests. Spent, finally, they collapsed against each other.

They stayed unmoving for a long time, catching their breath and waiting for their blood to stop buzzing in their ears. Saitou dipped his fingers in Hiko's cooling pool of sperm, much larger and richer than his, thinking that if Hiko was living in Kyoto, instead of up in the mountain, the city would have been full of his offspring. Hiko's withdrawal, although slow and careful, turned his smirk into a wince. Hiko checked his fingers for blood and the absence of it satisfied him.

They fell on their backs, not touching. Their slowing breathing was filling the silence. Saitou turned on his right side after a while, his back towards Hiko, needing a smoke helplessly. The taller man got up presently and found two pieces of cloth. He got water from a jug to drench them and he used one to clean himself, while he threw the other to Saitou. He got a fresh sheet for the mattress and proceeded to change the soiled one. After he was done, he lay back down. Saitou's lean form was bent over his discarded clothing, rummaging in the pockets. He came up with two cigarettes and a pack of matches.

'Don't light it in here,' Hiko warned, but the Wolf of Mibu was already pulling on his uniform trousers.

Once out of the cottage, barefooted on the cold earth, he lighted his cigarette and took a series of deep breaths, the expression of his face betraying immeasurable pleasure. He stood there for a while, his keen eyes penetrating the darkness, listening to the nocturnal noises. Myriad stars gleamed white on the dark blue sky. He finished the cigarette too quickly for his liking. Flexing his naked back, he sat on the trunk which Hiko had moved in front of the house and lighted the second stick, intending to enjoy it slowly.

He reached almost the end of it, and he had not decided yet what was he supposed to do, once he went back indoors. Should he sleep there the few hours that remained, until he'd have to start descending the mountain at dawn? Should he put on the rest of his clothes and leave now, without bothering the other swordsman more with his presence? What was expected of him?

The sound of the door opening, followed by heavy boot steps, warned him of the object of his worries approaching. Bare-chested, Seijuuro Hiko sat next to him on the trunk, jug of sake and two cups in hand. He extended one cup to the surprised Saitou, who extinguished the butt of his cigarette on the earth before he took it. Hiko poured sake for him, and then Mibu's Wolf took the jug and filled Hiko's cup in return.

'To the dead! May their rest be peaceful!' Hiko let some sake flow on the soil before he raised his cup.

Saitou was startled.

'To the dead!' he said finally, and sipped.

------ fin ------


End file.
